Broken Souls and Bones (Broken Souls and Bones #1)

Chapter 8

8

Roark

The melder flung backward, her trance broken. Sprawled out on the blood-soaked floor, she blinked.

Murmurs of Stav filtered across the hall. Folk of Skalfirth fell under a harrowing silence, watching as the woman lifted her bloody fingers with a bit of stun.

There was little time and patience to deal with hysterics if her mind fell into panic.

I shifted a step nearer when she propped onto one elbow. Breath caught in my chest, and I cursed my feckless reaction when her eyes fell to me first. I’d anticipated frenzy and cries and confusion, but she pinned me in place, as though she were peeling back my skin and glimpsing the darker edges of my soul.

There was a discomfiting peace in those eyes, like returning home after a long frost.

I knew no other melder but Fadey. Being raised for half my life in the Stonegate fortress, I had witnessed firsthand the brutality of melder craft. The lust for more, the corruption.

Still, for a moment, my hatred for melders dulled when her gaze found mine.

The woman was tall, clearly understood how to work, but still delicate in a way. Innocent. Not the sort I expected when we sailed here. Fadey had been a powerfully built man, as had the melders before him.

But she was stronger.

One touch and the bone shifted into place beneath Darkwin’s ribs, melding the power of the soul bone into his broken wounds.

Fadey had worked slowly, with more blood and gore. When she started melding, the woman’s hands worked as though she had used her craft from her earliest memories.

She was the melder who spurred deadly raids. So many lives were lost.

For her.

Because of her.

My jaw worked through the spark of disdain rising again. I shook out my hands, turned from her, and dragged three fingers over my chest, arching them out until I clapped them into my opposite palm. A gesture for the Stav to gather, for them to move to the boats.

Stav Guard chanted and pounded fists over their chests. Baldur stepped beside me. The damn grin on his face lifted the hair on my neck.

He reveled in the pain that he brought into this house.

With a sneer, the captain looked at the woman. “Prepare to sail. Bring the crafters. We take the new melder to our king.”

Baldur wrenched her off the ground, too rough, and an odd resentment tightened my chest.

Something about her dug into my sympathies, and it was aggravating.

Moments after Lyra was on her feet, Darkwin drew in a new, deep breath.

A sob broke from her chest and tears filled her dark eyes, dripping rich blue drops onto her cheeks. I scoffed. Clever woman. When she peered at me again, the dyes had stained her skin and a thin, silver scar dug through the black centers of her eyes. Dyes, that was how she’d kept herself hidden for so damn long.

The honor given to a melder’s household was enough even a mother would deliver her child to the gates of the royal keep upon the first glimpse of silver.

Except the fallen House Bien.

They kept their girl hidden until they paid with blood.

I’d barely met my twelfth summer when word filtered into Dravenmoor that the house of a new melder had been found. Distant memories of my folk strapping their longbows and seax blades to their shoulders still haunted my nights.

That raid was when I made a deadly misstep and lives were lost. Not long after, for my mistake, my folk left me for dead outside the walls of Stonegate, and the unexpected mercy of a young prince kept me breathing.

This woman—Lyra—had no sense of how soon her craft would be exploited.

“Sentry.” A young Stav clicked his heels, drawing to stiff attention at my side. “Do we take them all with their households?”

The great hall fell into chaos and cries of folk pleading for the bone crafters to be left in peace. Darkwin was breathing, but bloody and still. Lyra called his name, each time her voice cracking a little more. On the opposite side of her, the two spare crafters reached for their families.

Perhaps they were innocent and knew nothing, but the laws of Stonegate gave Damir the power to take from traitors as he pleased, and the king always demanded every drop of magical blood be claimed.

I made a swift gesture. Leave them. Only crafters .

The Stav swallowed, then dipped his head and aided his fellow guards in tearing the man and woman away from their families.

“No!” The melder tugged against the guards, but her eyes found me.

A muscle flexed in my jaw, but I ignored her pleas and pushed my way through the chaos.

All at once, Darkwin thrashed in his own blood on the floorboards. Blood from the wound had stopped flowing, but his body kept convulsing.

“Help him!” Lyra twisted in Baldur’s hold. “Remember, Sentry Ashwood, if he dies, then you have nothing. I swear it.”

The blaze in her eyes sealed her threat. She’d send herself to Salur, no doubt.

When Baldur signaled for Emi—the bone crafter who tore Darkwin apart—I gripped his shoulder, shaking my head.

Emi’s face had gone paler than it already was, and she was unsteady on her feet. Her damn craft had a bite to it. For bone crafters, the cost of manipulating in such a way caused phantom pains to burn in their own bodies.

No doubt, Emi’s limbs and ribs were lined in discomfort, but I knew her—this unsteadiness rose from something else.

When we were alone, she would spew her rage for what I’d made her do.

Baldur shook me off and shouted at a young Stav. “Seal the wound tight enough he makes it to Stonegate to face the king.”

The guard knelt beside Darkwin, wrapping clean linens over the split skin.

Already the soul bone was bolstering his broken ribs, and his chest appeared more intact. Soul bones healed and strengthened the living by absorbing pieces of the soul from the dead. The trouble was it was impossible to know if a healing body would take on the honor of the dead, or the darker desires.

When the melder shoved against Baldur’s chest, the captain yanked her hair to reclaim his control.

Unbidden, the touch of his hands on her skin, the wince of pain on her features, brought another shock of rage to my blood.

I forced my steps to a halt, gathering my damn senses. What was I planning to do? Take her from Baldur and…what? Protect her? Shield her?

The sight of me so near brought her panic to a pause. Her silver-scarred gaze locked with mine, as though she could see every vicious thought in my head. Until a flash of something darker burned through and her lips curved into a sly sort of grin.

Dammit.

I lunged to stop her, but wasn’t fast enough.

Lyra dropped as though her legs went boneless, managing to slip Baldur’s grip. Before he could take hold of her wrist, she snagged a slender knife from the side of her calf.

Baldur recoiled when she slashed at his face. Lyra scrambled to her feet, swiping the blade at any Stav who approached, then pressed the edge of the knife to her throat.

I held up a fist to stop the men approaching her from every side. The melder and I would speak in our own way.

Her eyes were wild, the scars like falling stars in the velvet night.

“Leave them,” she spat at me. “Leave my people. Take me, but you leave the rest.”

A grin—for the first time since arriving—cut over my mouth. I’d been wrong. I thought her delicate; there was nothing delicate about this one.

She would not understand my words, but I asked the question all the same. Meaning?

“Lord Ashwood asks for your clarification,” Baldur grumbled, no doubt irritable he’d been bested. “Who, exactly, are we to leave behind?”

“All the crafters.”

My grin widened. Treason has been found here and we cannot ignore it .

“Treason can’t be ignored,” Baldur translated with effort. He was too haughty to take the time to learn how to deeply communicate with me.

I was glad for it and cared to speak with him as infrequently as possible.

I tilted my head to one side. Because of the actions here, craft of this land now belongs to Stonegate .

When Baldur finished the broken reply, defiance blazed in her features, and I wanted to keep the fury she hid beneath the simplicity of her station and appearance, burning like a wildfire in the wood.

When she stepped one way, I stepped the other. We circled each other like the sun chased the moon at dawn. Lyra didn’t speak, merely pressed the knife into her skin, drawing a stream of blood that dripped down her slender throat.

I stopped my prowl, grin fading. Spill another drop , woman, and you’ll damn your people to the hells below.

Baldur chuckled through his explanation of my threat, but it only deepened the burn of hate in her eyes. Enough chatter.

In three strides, I crossed the floor between us, only pausing when she drew in a sharp breath of air. Her stun caused her to press the blade deeper into her flesh, adding another drop of blood to the smooth center of her throat.

My gaze followed the descent, unblinking, until it cascaded between the cleft of her breasts.

To her favor, she didn’t flush or look scandalized when our eyes met. “That will be the only look you shall ever receive, Sentry Ashwood.”

She studied me, no doubt cataloging every scar, every twitch of my face. I, in turn, committed the small dust of freckles over her slender nose, tells of fear carved into her brow, her mouth, almost like each one was a forgotten memory.

Deep in the dregs of my soul grew an unnerving desire to keep her close.

“Take me,” she said, voice low and rough, “and leave the rest. I am not asking.”

A grumble of annoyance rolled out from my chest. I pressed a hooked finger against the side of my head and twisted, like tightening a bolt in a hinge.

“He says you are foolish,” Baldur told her.

Her lips parted to spit back a reply, but I moved like a spark catching flame.

My fingers curled around her wrist, yanking the knife away from her throat. Seasons of training to drift in the shadows taught me to move as one, unseen until it was too late.

I peeled the knife from her grip, blade clattering on the floorboards, then pinned her body to my chest. One arm wrapped around her, keeping her arms tucked at her sides. With my free hand, I signaled to the Stav to move once more.

To the woman, I leaned in as though I could whisper. I did in my way, gently writing out my words against her cheek, taking a bit of twisted delight in the way she held her breath under my touch.

Say your goodbyes.